Saturday, November 8, 2014

Overwatch.

Yesterday was a very, very big day in our house. Tim's new game debuted at Blizzon, which is a big fan festival that his company puts on every year. The tickets are $300 a head and they sell out in minutes, for people who love the Blizzard universe and all of the games. There's no other vendors or games available, just all Blizzard all the time, and people absolutely eat it up, as a chance to see how their sausage is made, and as a way to meet up with people in person who they might only know via the various games. It's loud and crazy and busy, but also with a really communal, family feel, and all of the speakers emphasized that it was about the fans, and it was about being a family.

So. Tim could hardly sleep the night before, and was out early to go meet up with Jake and get a place in line for the opening ceremonies. I arrived a little later and went to my saved seat, where I was surrounded by nervous developers ready to cry with anticipation. The first part of opening ceremonies was about the games that everyone is already familiar with, and then the Creative Director came out and announced that Blizzard was releasing it's first new intellectual property in seventeen years. And then, cue the cinematic trailer, and the tears from all of the nerds seated around us, watching their baby on screen for the first time. You can see the trailer here.

Apparently during the trailer, the executives back stage were all bawling as well. And all of the guys were pulling off their sweatshirts (or in Tim's case, his polo shirt) to reveal their Overwatch promotional tee shirts. It was like at the end of Apollo 13 - so many nerdy dudes, so much emotion. The thing that really made Tim cry was a picture that Gigi sent of the kids snuggling up with Grizz and watching the live stream of the release.

Then they announced that the game was not just a concept, not just a trailer, but an actual playable game, and there were 600 monitors in the other hall available for people to go and play right away. It was just unreal to see how happy Tim was to finally see people playing his game, and it was amazing to me too to see this fun, playable, interesting game that came out of all of these people's brains, and was built with their hands (or as Tim likes to call them, his "valuable typing fingers.") I got a chance to sit down and play later in the day, and I am not very good (okay, I'm straight up terrible) but I had a great time. I am unspeakably proud of him, and how much work he's putting into this game. We moved down here so that he'd have the opportunity to work at his dream job, making a brand new, record breaking game, and to see all of that hard work start to come to fruition was beyond fantastic. And because of the intimacy of Blizzard, he got to actually talk to players and talk to fans and get their immediate feedback, which helps lift his spirits, and helps guide the developers as they finish making the game for release to the wider public.

I can't wait to see what he does next, and I'm so glad I got to be there holding his hand while he watched his baby be born.

About Me

Tim and Meg met in 2003 at UCLA, only three weeks before Meg graduated, and only three months before she moved to Canada for graduate school. They dated long distance for a year, got engaged in 2004 and married in 2005. Tim makes video games as an actual job. After five years in LA, in a 500 square foot apartment, we moved back behind the Orange Curtain and bought our first house in October 2009. We followed up that fun by having our first daughter, Elizabeth Rosemarie in October 2010.
Tim is 6'6" and Meg is 5'3". Yes, we know we look mismatched in pictures. Yes, Meg tries to stand on things to be taller whenever she can.